It seems like every "event", is now 100% a government "false flag" operation performed by our government.

I'm not one to doubt the lengths that the u.s gov will go to pull the wool over our eyes, but..........

These dudes are all pointing to the fact that this boston marathon bombing happened when CISPA was passed.. So they think the u.s. gov false flagged the event in order to get people's minds & the news media, away from covering the CISPA act.

I'm starting to hate anyone who has ever believed in a conspiracy theory. It's just getting ridiculous. Ok fine, believe in a few, good, that's ok. But when every event is a "FALSE FLAG", I just want to smack you.

All of these "FALSE FLAG" operations and beck/alex jones are still alive? Come on now. die(-1).

I get the great advantages the Bush administration reaped from placing the country on a permanent war status. For one thing, he probably got re-selected because of that, and he also got free hands to do almost anything he wished to do.

But from the very beginning of this I was adamantly opposed to that framing. The correct approach seemed to me then to treat the criminals as criminals.

This is still true, and the reasons are many. First, the real terrorists regard themselves as soldiers in a holy war. By giving them that label voluntarily, they get greater recruiting potential, greater fame, greater martyrdom. They were taken seriously, in the sense of an honorable opponent, someone we could declare a war against. But in reality that group IS undefined, nebulous, and ultimately quite small. What the US administration chose to do in 2001 elevated it, gave it mythical importance and a greater justification for existing.

Being declared a criminal has less glory attached to it than being declared an enemy combatant. Thus, by choosing the latter (as would want to do) we are giving the terrorists exactly what they want.

Second, the position of permanent and eternal war gives the US government powers to breach civil rights and human rights, a blank license to do things we would never accept done in ordinary crime prevention and crime-solving. But because the danger is now existential, almost anything, from water boarding to sending suspects to torture in other countries, can at least be debated. Once again, this gives the terrorists pretty much what they want if they happened to be motivated by the belief that Americans have too much freedom.

Third, that treatment creates the foundation for illogical reptile-brain fears to fog out logical thinking. If this danger is existential, it matters much more than the types of catastrophies (the Texas plant explosions) which cost us many more lives. If this danger is existential, almost any amount of money can be spent on averting it, whereas the causes which cost many more lives are regarded as "spending we cannot afford." This danger can be used to prop up utterly preposterous divisions of the federal budget pie and it can be used to fatten up parts of the bureaucracy which really do not need any more fattening.